'The Boys' Season 5: Who Is Shari Lewis?

Full disclosure: I watched The Boys Season 5, Episode 3, “Every One Of You Sons Of Bitches” a few weeks back thanks to the magic of critics’ screeners, and clocked one big thing. No, not that — spoilers past this point — everyone would think Ryan (Cameron Crovetti) is dead, because the end of the episode wasn’t clear on that front. It was that people would be extremely confused by the multiple Shari Lewis references.

If you need some more context for this, in the latest episode Soldier Boy (Jensen Ackles), the unfrozen, Captain America-meets-Winter Soldier of The Boys universe has joined the preeminent superhero team, The Seven. He’s done so thanks to a reputation wash from Homelander (Antony Starr) and company, but the profane, oversexed Supe doesn’t really care. While Homelander wants to bond with Soldier Boy, who is his biological father and closest equal when it comes to Supes, Soldier Boy doesn’t care… He’s immortal thanks to a formula known as V1, and will be around long after Homelander is dead.

In fact, as Soldier Boy tells him, eventually, “I’ll be running The Seven, shitting on Shari Lewis’s tits.” Later in the episode after having sex with Firecracker (Valorie Curry), another member of The Seven, he tells her about how he “railed Shari Lewis” on the balcony of Studio 54.

Given the multiple references, you might be like “ooh, who is this saucy minx Shari Lewis?” And that, my friends, is the joke.

Shari Lewis Is The Iconic Puppeteer/Creator Of Lamb Chop

Publicity photo of Shari Lewis and her puppets Lamb Chop and Charlie Horse from The Ford Show, 7 April 1960.

Born in 1933, Shari Lewis (originally named Phyllis Naomi Hurwitz), and grew to fame as a TV personality thanks to her talent for puppetry. She originally hosted a show called Facts N’ Fun in 1953, but it was in 1956 that she really made her mark, introducing the lamb puppet Lamb Chop on the Captain Kangaroo show.

That appearance spun off into her own variety show, first taking over Kartoon Klub on WPIX, and then morphing it into various other shows, which eventually led to The Shari Lewis Show on NBC in 1960. Lamb Chop was the big star and breakout, though she created many, many other puppet characters that were insanely popular for decades. Among other awards, Lewis won 12 Emmy Awards, a Peabody Award, and the John F. Kennedy Center Award for Excellence and Creativity.

Because explaining a joke always makes it funnier, no, nobody was shitting on Shari Lewis’s tits or railing her on the balcony of Studio 54 (at least to my knowledge). Instead, this is a disgusting, over-sexed character making the grossest possible aspersions about a squeaky-clean, iconic children’s performer. The joke is in the contrast between the two, though the repetition of Shari Lewis — likely an under-the-radar name for many younger viewers of The Boys — is pretty funny as well. It makes you wonder, “hey, who is this Shari Lewis person? Will she kill Homelander?”

Well, now you know the answer to the first question. And as for the second? Lamb Chop could take him, no problem.

The Boys Season 5 Premiere Dates And Episode Guide:

The Boys Season 5 will officially premiere on Prime Video on Wednesday, April 8, 2026. The season will be eight episodes long, with two dropping on premiere day.

Here’s the full list of episodes in The Boys Season 5, with premiere dates:

Wednesday, April 8, 2026: The Boys Season 5, Episode 1, “Fifteen Inches of Sheer Dynamite”
Wednesday, April 8, 2026: The Boys Season 5, Episode 2, “Teenage Kix”
Wednesday, April 15, 2026: The Boys Season 5, Episode 3, “Every One of You Sons of Bitches”
Wednesday, April 22, 2026: The Boys Season 5, Episode 4, “Through the Heavens Fall”
Wednesday, April 29, 2026: The Boys Season 5, Episode 5, “One-Shots”
Wednesday, May 6, 2026: The Boys Season 5, Episode 6, “King of Hell”
Wednesday, May 13, 2026: The Boys Season 5, Episode 7, “The Frenchman, The Female, and the Man Called Mother’s Milk”
Wednesday, May 20, 2026: The Boys Season 5, Episode 8, “Blood and Bone” *Series Finale*